Usually, the term “postconditioning” refers to a method during which the blood flow in an artery is stopped and started for multiple cycles immediately after re-opening initial blood flow in an occluded blood vessel, such as from a ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (“STEMI”). The postconditioning technique is generally used to reduce reperfusion injury in a person suffering from an ischemic event. Currently, physicians perform postconditioning techniques for the purpose of reducing reperfusion injury with a conventional angioplasty catheter. At this time, there is no catheter on the marketplace designed to perform postconditoining techniques in a blood vessel of a subject. Further, angioplasty catheters have been known to be modified or configured to locally deliver therapeutic agents to the vasculature of a subject. There is a need for methods and devices for increased uptake of drugs and other agents into the tissue of subjects.
The disclosed subject matter addresses these needs by providing methods and devices to perform postconditioning in a blood vessel and which exhibits increased uptake of the beneficial agent into the system of the subject. The methods and device also improve ejection fraction of a subject after an ischemic event.
The present invention provides methods for using a catheter to deliver beneficial agents during postconditioning of a blood vessel with the benefit of increast tissue uptake and have been known to be drug delivery devices in addition to A conventional angioplasty balloon catheter is not optimized to sequentially inflate and deflate for multiple cycles. Further the rapid exchange catheter is not designed to locally deliver a beneficial agent to distal to the balloon or ischemic site. Therefore, a need exists for a reperfusion device that is adapted to locally deliver a beneficial agent to synergistically improve inhibition of reperfusion injury.